Prologue
Mikhail (A few Weeks Before)
The door swings open and I step inside the lobby, rolling my shoulders once, the toothpick between my teeth shifting with the movement.
I spot Orazio, Anastasi and Elio talking.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” I say, hooking an arm around Orazio and Anastasia’s shoulders, smirking.
Orazio grunts. Anastasia pretends she doesn’t like it.
Elio pushes off the wall with that irritated look he reserves specifically for me. “Conference room. We talk before Orazio gives Anastasia the tour.”
I nod, ready to follow but something pricks the back of my mind. Like I’m being watched, like someone else is here.
I stiffen, turning to look back at the desk that sits in the lobby and I immediately waant to take it back.
Because fuck.
She’s behind the reception desk, flipping through a stack of files with shaking fingers, chewing on her lip like she’s trying to bite the nerves right out of her body.
The little receptionist.
Dark hair falls around her face. Skin pale like moonlight. A quiet thing, nervous little thing. My eyes narrow on instinct. My jaw goes slack for a second.
She’s blushing. Hard. Pink spreading across her cheeks like she’s embarrassed to even exist. Her eyes dart to Orazio every few seconds but it only makes her blush even harder.
I’m completely invisible. She has no idea I’m staring at her. No idea she’s already unraveling something stupid inside my chest.
I want her to look at me. I move toward her before I realize I’ve decided to. The group fades out behind me. The room shrinks around the path between us.
When she finally looks up she goes still.
Her eyes widen, those ridiculous dark-blue irises catching light like the ocean right before a storm. She has to tilt her head back, then back more, neck straining just to meet my eyes.
And she looks overwhelmed.
It’s the first time I wish I was smaller, not so intimidating. It’s almost comedic, actually, the way I also have to look down to see her. Like a mouse versus a panther.
But there’s nothing funny about the way heat shoots down my spine.
Her breath catches. Her lips part. Her cheeks get impossibly redder.
I lean one forearm against the counter, dropping my voice. “Hi.”
It comes out lower, more interested than I meant.
She blinks fast, cute, and stutters over nothing before finally whispering, “Hi.”
She tries to retreat as I straighten, but there’s nowhere for her to go. The back of ther knees hit her rolling chair and it skitters backward and slams into the file cabinet behind her.
She flinches, mortified. “Um, sorry.”
My lip curves before I can stop it. I don’t look away from the way she chews on her lip.
Behind me, I hear Orazio, Anastasia walk away. I’ll catch up to them later. I just keep watching her. The little receptionist with shaking hands and ocean eyes.
I drag my gaze up her body slowly, intentionally, and hold it on her face.
She swallows like she can feel it.
I extend a hand, even though she would have to take a step forward to reach it. “I’m Mikhail.”
She stares at my hand for a beat too long, then, very reluctantly, she slips her much smaller hand into mine.
“Ana,” she whispers.
Her palm is warm. Soft. She tries to pull back immediately. I let her, but my fingers twitch with the urge to hold on.
“What do you do here?” I ask, voice low, even though I damn well know exactly what she does here. I just want to hear her speak again.
She clears her throat, still not meeting my eyes. “I… I’m the receptionist.”
I nod slowly just as something on her desk catches my eye, a thick textbook, pages marked with tabs, notes sticking out. “You’re studying.”
She glances down quickly, embarrassed again. “Yeah. I’m… going to school for nursing. Trying to, at least.”
Images flash through my mind like sin. Her in pale-blue scrubs, leaning over me, small hands on my skin as she tends to me. Or no scrubs at all, if that’s what she would prefer.
I drag air into my lungs, force my voice steady. “A nurse.”
She nods. “That’s the plan. Don’t want to be a receptionist forever.”
I nod back, slow, hungry, letting the picture of her tending my wounds live in my head a moment longer.
I take in the smooth edges of her jaw, the pulse in her neck. “How old are you exactly?”
Her lashes flutter. “Twenty-three.”
My jaw clicks. She’s young. Too young, some would argue.
She frowns slightly, chewing on her lip as she looks up at me. “How old are you?”
I hesitate. The answer feels heavy in my mouth, but I force it out. “Thirty-four.”
Her eyes widen, darting over my shoulder toward where Orazio and Anastasia disappeared. Almost like she’s checking for witnesses. Or escape routes.
She’s nervous, wary. Of me.
I should step back, put distance between us, but instead I lean forward a little. She’s just that magnetizing.
I stiffen as my gaze catches hers again. Those dark-blue eyes, they aren’t just pretty. They’re the ocean back home, cold and endless.
I grew up near the cliffs above the Black Sea, the waves cutting against the rocks like knives, the wind biting hard. I learned early that the sea doesn’t care who you are. It will take you under if you let it, drag you down quietly, without warning.
And somehow, somehow, when I look at her, I feel the same pull.
I remember standing on the cliffs above the Black Sea as a boy, the wind tearing through my hair, the waves smashing into the jagged rocks below. The spray stung my face, the cold seeped through my coat, and I felt small, but alive, utterly untethered.
How could something so beautiful, so vast, be so capable of swallowing you whole?
That fear, that awe, it’s freedom, too.
And this tiny, trembling girl with dark-blue eyes, she drags me right back there, to that edge, to that dizzying mix of fear and fascination.
I tilt my head toward her, “I’ll see you around, Ana.”
I have to force my legs to move and they do, even through my mind isn’t walking. It’s stuck, sinking, twisting, already imagining every way she could unravel me, and the worst part? I want it.
She nods, not taking her eyes off of me as I walk away to join the others.
